A lot of companies request customised ITSM solutions. The background of these companies varies and can be very important when deciding if to implement a ITSM solution or buy one. The price tag for buying, installing and parameterisation of a commercial product excluding ITIL/MOF consulting will almost never be less than $150K even for a small company so the decision is one not to be taken lightly. Let’s have a look a couple of scenarios and the pros and cons of each solution.

Scenario 1: “We Need Process Design” WNPD Corp.

WNPD is a Large Company with Complicated needs but with the current economic downturn has reduced purchasing power for ITSM tools. The IT management has decided to implement MOF/ITIL and is looking into the implementation of its ITSM solution but the focus is clearly documentation and not tools. The company already has a large installed base of various software packages with limited workflow capability like Microsoft Project, Exchange or Notes and various intranet applications. The IT managers are worried that the effort of installing the solution may take valuable time away from process design and documentation aspects of the ITIL project but at the same time the organization clearly needs to implement the processes and one consideration is to create simple tools base on Excel, Access and Exchange. 

The pros and cons of building their own ITSM solution are:

Pros

-Quick to implement
-Initially Inexpensive
-Customisable with links to current databases stored in the Organization. Inventory lists of Hardware and Software are quickly linked, as are data stored by system management solutions
-Learn before spending on “Real Solution”: A good way to develop the functional requirements and use cases required for a comprehensive ITSM solution.

Cons

-Limited functionality
-Low Quality User Interface
-Not integrated with System Management tools
-Inadequate solution may reduce interest by Executives and Users for continued support of project.
-Ballooning features and fixes development costs of a prototype solution could outrun the costs of the more developed solution.

Scenario 2: “Our Help Desk Needs a Better CMDB” NeedCMDB Corp.

NeedCMDB has Help Desk software, which stores incidents without a dense interlinking between items in the CDMB. The IT operations manager wants to install change management since most problems occur as a result of infrastructure changes and the distribution of software patches in the vast number of in house applications included in the service catalogue she supports. There are also a large amount of recurring incidents that she believes she could better solve with effective problem management. 

The pros and cons of building their own ITSM solution are:

Pros

-Designing the granularity of the CMDB is easier with the record of the services and incidents, which are most important to the organization.
-A simple DSL can be implemented to support change and version management and make software installations smoother.

Cons

-With a service catalogue full of in house software applications the CMDB could be very complex because of the inclusion of many in house software components
-Change management and the creation of the standard change database is a complex task and require a longer time frame than can be supported by a rapid prototype solution.

Scenario 3: “Our Business is defined by our SLAs” ASP corp.

ASP corp. wants to control their SLAs and give a high level of service. They are also concerned with automated software distribution and testing. The CTO of ASP corp. decided almost as soon as the check was in the bank from the venture capitalists that he wanted to implement a complete MOF based operations centre to maturity level 5.

The pros and cons of building their own ITSM solution are:

Pros

-They can integrate the solution exactly they way the want with their system management tools
-They can create custom interfaces for customers to report incidents, request changes and even carry out changes online.
-Some of the features they offer can lead to highly configurable SLAs and may offer them a differentiator with regards to other ASPs

Cons

-Time to develop a complete ITSM solution may be too long to provide ASP corp with a leading edge unless substantial development effort is used, which may lead to a drain of key resources from other development projects.
-Support for a Product in a long time frame can prove to be a burden on IT resources and end up being very expensive.

Scenario 4: “We need effective tools and processes for our Small but Leading Edge Company” Small Inc.

Small Inc. needs a system to develop a small help desk and incident management but does not have any large-scale system management tools. They are thinking about Change Management and Configuration management to keep total control of their infrastructure.

The pros and cons of building their own ITSM solution are:

Pros

-It is possible to build an Access Database with the key tables in a few weeks of work
-They can customize the functionality quickly and communicate changes in the small work group

Cons

-The organization needs to have a high level of understanding of MOF/ITIL or hire a qualified MOF/ITIL consultant.
-The integration with System management tools will most likely be too difficult of a task which implies that the CMDB will remain a manual tool containing only the very most important assets.

How Complex is this really?

As a general rule it is completely possible to build a prototype ITSM/CMDB solution and the effort involved will be about the same as the effort required to populate it. Since the work required to populate a CMDB is complex and involves gathering data from a multitude of sources these two tasks together may present too large of an undertaking for organizations which do not have enough dedicated resources for their MOF/ITIL implementation.